Missing Women, Missing News; Covering Crisis in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside

by Unknown

• ISBN13: 9781552663776
• ISBN10: 1552663779
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2011-02-01
• Publisher: Fernwood Pub Co Ltd

Summary

The arrest and trial of Robert Pickton--a man charged with murdering 26 prostitutes in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside--is at the center of this study of the behavior of police officers and news reporters when a crime involves poor or marginalized victims. The analysis asks What made it possible for so many women to simply disappear from a densely populated urban neighborhood without provoking an aggressive response by the state?For answers, the book compares the Vancouver murders to the disappearance of a single teenager in Toronto--a tragic but isolated incident--that marshaled vigorous police work and extensive media coverage. Pointing to the broad social forces that drove this unequal treatment, the discussion calls for changes in the way the media covers police work.

Author Biography

David Hugill is in the process of earning his PhD in human geography at York University and is an editor of Upping the Anti, a journal of theory and actions. He lives in Toronto, Ontario.

Table of Contents

Introduction: ôOnce We Became Awareö	p. 9
The Canadian Mediascape	p. 14
Ideology as the Reproduction of Commonsense	p. 17
Ideology and News Discourses	p. 19
Ideology and the Case of the Missing and Murdered Women	p. 21
Reconsidering Dominant Explanations	p. 22
Defining the Boundaries of the Crisis	p. 24
Liberal Assumptions and News Narratives	p. 24
Defining the Crisis: The Negligence Narrative	p. 26
Notes	p. 31
Absolving the State	p. 32
The Violent Rise of the Neoliberal State	p. 33
Criminal Law and the Attack on Street Prostitution	p. 40
Colonialism and Its Discontents	p. 46
Notes	p. 54
Producing the Prostitute	p. 55
Criminal Danger and Moral Corruption	p. 56
Representing the Prostitute	p. 58
Accredited Sources and Authoritative Statements	p. 61
The Dominant Paradigm	p. 70
Producing Skid Row	p. 76
War Is Peace: Two Parts of the Same City	p. 77
Mapping Chaos	p. 86
Chaos as Press Narrative	p. 87
Urban Disconnections	p. 91
Dangerous Illusions	p. 95
Conclusions: Beyond the Benevolence of the State	p. 97
References	p. 104
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